Glute Strengthening for Runners: How to Get Started

Big butts, I cannot lie: they’re great for runners. But our glute muscles are often neglected – and that’s leaving a lot of runners injured.

The glutes are really made up of three separate muscles that make your booty the largest muscle group in the body:

Gluteus maximus (responsible for extending the hip joint)

Gluteus medius (responsible for hip abduction and thigh rotation)

Gluteus minimus (responsible for hip abduction and thigh rotation)

Because of their size, these muscles can produce a lot of force. In fact, they’re one of the primary muscles that help you run fast. Like quads for cyclists, the glutes are a distance runner’s primary source of power.

Strong glutes also center the pelvis and give you a strong, stable foundation upon which to generate speed.

But runners neglect their glutes in three critical ways:

A lack of strength training

Training mistakes

Poor lifestyle habits

In this article, you’ll learn the importance of these muscles, mistakes that will weaken your butt, and exercises for glute strengthening.

Why is Glute Strength So Important?

The impact of a strong butt can’t be denied: you’ll be a healthier, happier, faster runner.

As Dr. Jordan Metzl, author of Running Strong, has said numerous times:

A strong butt is the key to a happy life!

But more specifically, glute strengthening for runners has two major advantages. First, you’ll improve your ability to generate speed. And second, you’ll be far less likely for a major running injury.

The speed benefit is clear: as the largest muscle group in the body, they’re capable of producing a lot of power. They can generate force, speed, and propel you to your next big Personal Best.

Injury prevention is the benefit you’ll probably experience first and most dramatically. That’s because it only takes a few short weeks of dedicated glute strengthening to start noticing improvements.

First, you’ll feel that your form is more efficient and powerful. Then, you’ll notice how you have fewer niggles and aren’t as tired on your longest efforts.

Over time, your injury rate will go down and you’ll end up a faster, healthier runner.

How Runners Neglect the Glutes

Runners neglect their glutes through training, lifestyle, and strength habits. Let’s explore each one so you can address any shortcomings in your training.

Training Mistakes

How you structure your running has a big impact on the strength of your backside. If your training is mostly easy running, you’re leaving a lot of strength and economy on the table.

Add in these fundamental elements of sound training for some extra glute strength:

From a running perspective, these additions will help you feel more athletic with a stronger butt in just a few weeks.

Poor Lifestyle Habits

Your butt can be detrained by what you do outside of running just as easily as what you do while training.

Runners who’ve gone through our injury prevention material understand that a modern lifestyle is often incompatible with running performance. And the top culprit is our affinity for sitting for so many hours of the day.

Sitting for prolonged periods of time weakens the gluteal muscles, stretches them, and trains them to be inactive for long stretches of time.

These activities, taken together, make a strong, athletic, capable, fast athlete. It’s the entire package, not a simple routine performed once or twice per week.

If you’ve experienced more injuries than you’d like recently, a series of glute strengthening exercises for runners can be a worthy addition to your training. But always remember to include the training and lifestyle factors that promote sound glute function too!

Get More Prevention Resources

Glute strength is a primary concern for injury-prone runners. These big muscles control and power the running stride.

If there’s a problem with your mechanics, there’s an excellent chance it can be traced back to poor glute strength or function.

Start with these exercises to determine how strong you are so you can run healthy (and faster!).

But of course, injury prevention is about a lot more than strengthening the gluteal muscles. The training you do is arguably even more important to whether or not you’ll stay healthy.